Possibility: Placing the Blame
by Mystic83
Summary: What if the miscommunication between Hot Dog, Kat, and the acting CAG, Birch had ended with fatal results? What if Starbuck and Apollo had returned to the Fleet to find one of their pilots had died? KaraLee


This will be a series of stand-alone stories which deal with the choices that the characters on Battlestar Galactica have made throughout the first half of the second season (I'll be posting in as much of the order of the season as I can). I want to explore what would have happened/changed if things had gone differently. Some of the stories will be angst, some will be shippy, some will be funny. There will be different pairings throughout. Don't feel like you have to check out each one to understand the others. All I ask is that if it intrigues you, then give it a try. Hope you enjoy reading the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them!

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**_There are pivotal moments in one's life where if you take the wrong path everything may change. Those changes may be for the good or for the bad. The possibilities are endless.

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Lee found her sitting in a pile in front of her locker, crying softly to herself. His eyes took in the small pieces of paper scattered along the ground and the writing on her mirror where a photo should have been, and suddenly he wanted to kill the pilots under his command.

"Kara," Lee whispered, coming to a stop behind where she sat.

She didn't say a word until he crouched down to the floor. Then, it was simply a half-muffled whisper asking what she had done to deserve this before she threw herself into his open arms. Lee held on tight as his eyes went up to the mirror again.

_Murderer._

Kara didn't deserve this, but then again neither did he.

Lee's eyes looked over to the flight uniform hanging in his open locker. He had yet to fix the hole that was ripped in the sleeve where his Viper patch mysteriously disappeared the day before.

Kara pulled back and wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry, Lee."

"There's no need to apologize," he told her as he shifted to sit on the floor next to her. "If you can't lean on me right now, who can you lean on?"

"Do you think they're ever going to realize their mistake?"

Lee nodded. "Eventually. I think when Kat's death isn't so fresh in their minds."

Kara shifted to lay her head on Lee's shoulder and whispered, "I don't understand why they blame you and me."

"We were in charge of those nuggets. It was your job to train them and my job to give them the in-air experience since you hurt your knee. I should have been with them on that attack run."

"It's not your fault that Birch was the most incompetent CAG to ever grace the Fleet," Kara argued.

"He was only in power because I went on the lam with President Roslin."

"Lee, there's no guarantee that Tigh or your father would have put you back in command even if you were still on Galactica. You were locked away in the brig for mutiny."

Lee shook his head and laughed lightly. "I thought I was supposed to be the one comforting you here."

"It's a mutual thing. You tell me about how your job as CAG has been sabotaged, and I tell you about how the pilots are slowly destroying all my memories."

Lee reached out to pick up a piece of the photo. He smirked at the sight of half of Kara's face beaming back at him. "I didn't think they would go this far."

"It was Hot Dog," Kara sighed. "I don't think anyone would go this far but him."

Lee nodded. Hot Dog had taken Kat's death the worst out of all the pilots. They had come into the Fleet together and had watched as their friends were shot down around them. That would be enough to make a man break. Add to it the fact that Birch had ordered the eyeball run from Hot Dog that ended in tragedy, and it was no wonder Constanza felt the need to hurt anyone he could blame for her death.

"He'll get over it," Lee said firmly.

Kara shook her head in disagreement. "No, he won't. If I had been in Hot Dog's place and my best friend's death was on my hands, I don't think I could have found it within myself to forgive anyone."

Lee was surprised. He knew that Kara had cared for her nuggets, but she had seen so much death in her time as a Colonial pilot. "You would have been that upset over the accident with Kat?"

"I wasn't talking about Kat, Lee."

She moved her hand to intertwine with his, and Lee realized who she was referring to. "I feel the same way," he whispered. "There's not much you can depend on these days, but that's one of them, I guess."

"So how do we fix this, Mr. CAG?" Kara asked after a moment.

"I don't know. We can't bring her back, and we shouldn't have to apologize for the choices we've made. The actions you and I took single-handedly gave the Fleet a purpose. Kat's death was just another sacrifice we made in order to get that."

His mind fell back to the scars Kara had come home with. She had been a complete wreck even before she found out about Kat. Lee had done his best to gleam facts from those who had been there with her. He was so concerned he even went to talk to Sharon to see if she knew anything. The things she told him in combination with what Helo reported going through had given Lee an idea of what Kara's scars were, and he didn't like it at all.

"Aren't you scheduled for CAP?" Kara asked, even though she didn't move to untangle herself from him.

"I have a few hours before I have to go. I was coming in to try to fix my flight suit."

"The patch again?"

"They switched sides from the Galactica patch to the Viper patch now. I guess they were getting bored seeing me fix the same fraking side over and over again."

"It's not going to stop. No matter how much we ignore it or try to make them see, they're going to keep punishing us." Lee could feel her anger starting to fester. "Tigh frakked up the whole damn Fleet while the Old Man was down and out, but no one's blaming him. The Old Man made the choice to put Birch in your position even though he knew Birch couldn't handle it. Why doesn't someone blame him?"

"Because my father makes mistakes all the time, but he keeps the majority of the Fleet alive while doing it. And everyone knew Tigh was going to frak things up when he took charge of the Fleet. Gods, half the ship wanted to stage a coup and throw me in power."

Kara gave him a look of disbelief. "You would have frakked things up just as bad as Tigh."

"Don't I know it! But the ship must have figured that at least I had the genetics of a good Commander on my side," Lee said, gathering up all the photo pieces into his hand. "Now, if I remember correctly, you have a shift down in the hangar."

"Just call me a deckhand," Kara laughed. Doc Cottle had been taking his sweet old time clearing her knee for Viper flight now that she had returned. Groaning at the prospect of working with more broken gimbals, Kara walked over to the hatch without faltering once, but that had never been the difficult part. Instead, it was the last step over the threshold and out into the corridor that was so hard. The second she stepped outside the bunkroom, it would be back to the pattern of slow torture to which she was accustomed.

"Kara." Lee's voice caused her to turn back from the open hatch. "You have me, no matter what happens. Remember that."

Lee watched her give him a small smile so wrapped in sadness that he could feel his heart break just a little more. For the sole reason that she had been the one to disappear completely from the Fleet, Kara was taking the brunt of the blame. The world wasn't fair.

Sighing, Lee reached into the bottom of his locker to pull out some electrical tape he had been hoarding. He ripped off a few pieces and attached the patch back to his uniform as a quick fix. He had thought he could use his little bit of free time to do the more permanent method of repair, but it turned out there was something more important to do.

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Kara let the orange overalls in her hand hit the floor as soon as she entered the bunkroom. Her whole body felt caked with oil and engine grease. All she wanted to do was hit the head and then roll up in her bunk for a thousand years. All she had time to do was get a towel out of her locker to wipe away as much dirt as she could before giving the new nuggets another lesson in the ready room.

She ripped open her locker door and immediately did a double take. Her picture was back. Someone had taken the time to tape each piece back together. The memory of who exactly had picked up the shredded pieces for her made her smile. She reached her hand out to gently touch the man on the right.

Lee had been right. If she had nothing else, at least she had him.


End file.
